


Imprisoned

by tocasia



Series: Our Shining Past [34]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: AU, Dark, Death, Gen, Horror, I reject your reality and substitute my own, Insanity, Sephiroth and Zack friendship, Stream of Consciousness, Tragedy, dreams or maybe not, interior monologues, possibly disturbing, real villains have mothers, the war in Wutai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-06 00:16:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12805467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tocasia/pseuds/tocasia
Summary: Sephiroth is captured in Wutai.  Dark.(37. imprisoned) for Seph&Zack Friendship 100 Themes





	Imprisoned

It was a squad of his own who'd betrayed him to the enemy. Wutai should have had to massacre a whole camp to get to him, or somehow catch him by surprise, alone. Both scenarios were laughable and easily dismissed.

But for all he could do, General Sephiroth was still just a man who had to sleep sometime, and his secret fear of that vulnerability had been no protection.

He was their captive, and now he had to hope he was strong enough to escape anything Wutai came up with.

* * *

The light was warm, hot against his leather, its brightness unrelenting. It hadn't so much as dimmed since... since he'd been brought here. It penetrated his tightly closed eyelids and gave him a headache. It buzzed.

Sephiroth didn't sense anyone nearby.

He took the opportunity to assess his condition. It was impossible to tell how long he'd been unconscious. Superficially he was uninjured, and didn't remember torture, but the evidence may have already healed; his thoughts were suspiciously hazy. He had to assume he was under surveillance.

Wait, leather? They'd let him keep his clothes? ...but not the belt or pauldrons or boots or an armlet for materia, or the three small utility knives he carried. Those were gone.

There was no sign of Masamune, as was to be expected.

He was filthy, and his scalp itched. He shifted his weight and felt something tug. They'd let him keep his hair? He tried to adjust his position so that it wouldn't be trapped beneath him. The effort was exhausting.

If they meant to break him, shouldn't they have stripped him of everything he knew and left him naked? Human shame was a powerful tool; why had the enemy allowed him to keep his identity? Was it a show of confidence to reinforce his helplessness? A different sort of humiliation, a reminder that _he_ , Great General Sephiroth, slave to his pride, was their prisoner? That could be it. Or maybe they planned to ransom him, or take videos of... whatever it was they were going to do... and so needed him to be recognizable.

He'd approve of the psychological effect if it wasn't happening to him.

He was not bound, a third surprise; the space he was confined in was so tiny that perhaps they'd deemed it an unnecessary precaution. There was not enough room to lie down flat on his back, which explained the aching stiffness and muscle cramps he'd awoken with. He wanted to work the knots out of his shoulders, but was too weak to raise his arms again after checking his gear. There were no visible exits, no relief for the dull, insistent pain.

Not many options yet, but no immediate danger, either. He'd stay vigilant for as long as possible and they'd eventually make a mistake. There would be a chance at escape... and _retribution_. No, focus on one thing at a time. He was still disoriented. Maybe he shouldn't wear himself out. He had to conserve his strength, and the fumes made him very sleepy....

* * *

Was he awake?

Difficult to say. His eyes were crusted shut by hardened tears, a reaction to the gas, the fine mist that hung stagnant in the air awaiting his next breath. His captors somehow had a drug that was effective against him? Had they designed it themselves? It shouldn't work, otherwise. A generous variety of toxins had been tested on him as a child, because he'd made a foolish and boastful game of it, repeatedly daring the scientists to try something new. Many of the results had been ...unpleasant, like this was. Mother had scolded him for it. But with her help he'd always adapted, achieved resistance and even immunity with time, and then she was proud of how strong he was. She took good care of him.

_It'll be alright._

When he got out of here, he'd collect a sample of the poison and order Shinra to research an antidote before it could be deployed in the field.

Finally he had no choice but to inhale, and the bitter, caustic taste stung, _writhing_ , in his throat. Disgusting. Vile! At least he was gathering intelligence, confirming with minimum casualties that Wutai was developing chemical and biological weapons. Shinra of course wouldn't do such a thing. He didn't count.

...how much did the enemy know of his abilities? Did they know how well he could hear? Sephiroth needed a distraction, so he listened. Were there any other prisoners? What type of place was it?

* * *

The jarring bumbling of little wheels, perhaps belonging to a lightly loaded cart being pushed along a concrete floor, carried a surreal memory of panic that couldn't _possibly_ be his. Why would that be alarming? If this was a lab, it provided a convenient opportunity for sabotage. But Wutai wasn't stupid; they wouldn't keep him close to something so valuable. Similarly, they wouldn't put him near a command center, a storehouse for ammunition, or an administrative building.

Some sort of ventilation system whirred lazily. There was nothing from below. He might be on the lowest level of the compound.

Muffled footsteps? Somewhere above there was carpet. Oh?

"9Z17D, 4N23F, ...static... (unlawful hummingbirds? must mean something else), over."

Radio communications! Now _that_ was useful! Both callsigns were unfamiliar to him and he had only half the conversation, but maybe it didn't matter. If he wanted to, he'd be able to send a message after he escaped his cell. The thought cheered him immensely. And planning a route to the comm room would be something to do.

'YXD6673'... that was a project for research and development of landmines.

Other than that, Sephiroth learned more from what he _didn't_ hear.

There were no sputtering diesel engines and no weapons being discharged. No administrative chatter; no rapid typing of keyboards. No names or titles of high ranking officers, although someone swore at a common last name, whose apology ended with, "Sir!" No growls, roars, screams or shouts or rougher sounds of direct violence or struggling or pleading.

The part of the complex where he was being held was out of the way of regular traffic. Any coming and going was distant. He was far from an exit.

Heh. Snippets of a civilian radio show, with commercials and propaganda. Someone was likely to get a reprimand for that.

* * *

There was no day/night cycle, only the constantly buzzing light. The cloying vapor threatened him with the creeping fear that any breath could be his last. Coughing made it worse and broke his concentration.

He drifted half-awake, bereft of restful sleep, alone except for his own thoughts, which were often quite pleasant company but a little variety would be nice.

They hadn't interrogated him. Sephiroth hadn't seen another human being in... some time. No one had come to take pleasure in his pain. If they didn't want information or carnal release for their petty grudges, why was he here, alive? Did they intend to drive him to madness, to perhaps afterwards recreate him as a shell of his former self, a tamed, degraded beast to be trained for their entertainment? Maybe. And they were going about it impersonally. A good choice. They treated him like the dangerous prisoner he was. In other circumstances he may have been grateful for the respect.

No, their rationale did not have to be so exotic. Wutai didn't need him dead, just dead to the world. General Sephiroth, missing in action. His absence would spell disaster for Shinra's forces. It hadn't occurred him to make a backup plan for if _he_ failed to accomplish an objective.

They may have spread rumors that he'd defected. He might do that, in their place. If believed, it would certainly lessen his chance of rescue.

Ha! Rescue. He could dream.

* * *

The communications he'd overheard thus far had been frustratingly unintelligible. The majority of garbled codewords stubbornly refused his attempts to decipher them.

Initially, he'd dreaded reports of battles in which Shinra and SOLDIER suffered heavy losses due to mistakes in troop movements, poor tactical choices, and/or wasted resources, but he was aware of only one. Cobalt Key, part of the island chain east of Mideel, was where Hippogriff Air Base used to be. Target destroyed. So Wutai had firebombed it, too.

Hopefully, his allies knew more about his location than he did and were already on their way. Sephiroth kept listening.

That oft-mentioned name for a traditional seafood dish referred to chocobos, and the paired sauce supplied the details. Or maybe there really was a kitchen on the premises.

His ears perked up at a profane slur for SOLDIER, but it was nothing specific.

'Pollensalta's Spiral' was a natural materia cave on the southern cape. There was a submarine dock there.

Despite the trend, none of the radio transmissions used naval codes, so this base was unlikely to be on the coast. Instead, the unchanging temperature and the smell of humidity being sucked out of the air implied that he was underground. Of course, he knew of several secret prisons and interrogation centers run by Wutai's equivalent of the Turks. Could he rule out any sites lacking suitable geology for an underground base? Depth of the water table, stability of the earth.... No, this was probably a remote mountain bunker, and those were too numerous to count. They didn't take long to build with the magic Wutai had access to.

Speaking of which, prior to his capture, Shinra had intercepted materia that contained a spell for Silence. Early testing hadn't revealed the full extent of its limits: range, maximum duration, whether or not the area could be shaped, all unknown. If it could be used to safeguard sensitive information, Wutai would do that. Irritation slipped closer to anger.

* * *

Bored, Sephiroth reexamined his surroundings, vision less blurry than it had been. He couldn't stand up yet to check the height of the ceiling, but he could make a guess. A sphere hollowed out by magic? That was plausible, but it was hard to tell without shadows. The rough stone walls were coated with a shimmering, prismatic film. Like the insidious bubbles some monsters could make, it was icy to the touch and drank in the excess warmth of the light, and was slowly, steadily siphoning off his energy. That, combined with the poison, would ensure he was too drained to cast, even if he'd had materia. Clever. Had this cell been custom made for him? He wryly accepted the honor.

There was nothing more to see. Everywhere the unending light was white, but it became the hateful, entrapping green of his nightmares, stretching forever.

Jenova was singing. She knew so many songs. He'd asked her once where she learned them all, and what she'd said didn't make sense.

_You taught them to me._

Her singing banished the green and brought soothing darkness, and he slept.

* * *

They used to make the best chocolates in Nibelheim.

The dark-haired man in the red cape with red eyes that had a dangerous flash of yellow behind them stood tall on the coffin's lid, in the room with the skulls, staring. His stare made Sephiroth uncomfortable, angry? _furious?_ until the man suddenly lowered his gaze and dropped to his knees and begged for forgiveness for some grave slight or sin unspecified.

"I don't understand. How can there be anything to forgive when we have never met before?"

"You don't remember," the man said. It wasn't a question.

Sephiroth looked at him, searching for any meaning. Nothing. Of course. Turk. "Remember what?"

"Do you remember Lucrecia?"

"Yes. But what business is that of yours?"

"I thought that might've been why you woke me."

No, and he had no memory of doing that. "I...."

And then Vincent shot him through the heart.

* * *

There was not a wound on him. Her feather-light touch brushed away the pain that didn't exist.

_It'll be alright._

Mother was working hard to build his immunity. Soon it would be better. They'd never found anything in the labs that could keep him down for long. Sephiroth defiantly remained confident. He did!

...he had to give his captors credit for this one, though. Not only was it taking a while, but it felt _terrible_ , like he had a migraine in his joints. The pins-and-needles moved across his skin at random.

His thoughts turned again to hope of rescue.

Fair would come for him.

But that made no sense! Why? Why would he think about Fair? He was only Second Class. True, Sephiroth had promoted him personally on the battlefield, which wasn't a common occurrence. But beyond that, he didn't know the man at all. What could a Second do? If anyone came to rescue him, it would be a squad of Firsts. If he even needed rescue! He still might escape....

Jenova laughed. She didn't mean anything by it.

Besides, he didn't know where on this Hades-forsaken continent Fair was right now. Didn't even know if he was alive, although he hoped he was. It made no sense.

As time went by, which it must have done, it became a dream. Zack would be the one to save him.

Later, when he was busy denying other aspects of his situation and seldom worried anymore about how that dream wasn't realistic...

...he wanted Zack to come anyway.

* * *

He tried to count the hours by listening up through the ceiling to the conversations in the comm room. Were there rotating shifts? Sephiroth couldn't be sure; he knew his perceptions at this point were unreliable, his judgment compromised.

By now, he'd expected to hear a hint of his future fate or a simple acknowledgment of his existence, but there was nothing about himself. The people talking likely did not realize he was in the same facility.

He'd learned to distinguish their voices, and pictured in his mind what they might look like. Elsewhere, that woman might have worn a pink sweater with buttons. The polite man's accent was from the rural southwest; perhaps he'd been a scholar before the fields were torched. Another man's voice rattled from decades of smoking; he probably had whiskers. And the young, mostly male, voices of the guards, who said very little, but Sephiroth imagined salutes.

He heard them talk about their families, and how they'd sent their children away with relatives to one of the (unnamed!) schools that was still standing.

* * *

Jenova asked why he hadn't escaped yet and didn't believe him when he said he couldn't.

I can't walk through walls today, Mother.

They'd given him neither food nor water. Could he measure time by how long he could go without? What an idea! No, the data would be all muddled. 'Muddled'! What kind of word was that?

He was so thirsty. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and when he pulled it away there was blood. But if they wanted him to pray to Leviathan for a glass of water they'd be sorely disappointed.

He was hungry. His metabolism had switched to burning Mako instead of muscle to keep him alive. The bile in his throat spilled into his thoughts. A few more days and his magical reserves would be depleted entirely, and then, even if he adapted to the toxin, he wouldn't be able to summon Masamune for his escape. He began to feel the cold.

Morale in the comm room was higher. Sephiroth wondered what sort of victory they'd won. Or was it a holiday?

* * *

Was he awake? How would he know?

Here he stood, in the center of dancing swirling Mako gushing thousands of feet into the atmosphere, igniting the luminiferous aether of the Ancients with green, blue, blinding bright (so beautiful!), the wind scattering the plumes into rain, corrosive and cleansing. And knowing, this was happening all over the Planet because he willed it!

How easy it was to save the world!

With the Planet's pain diminished, he found he missed it.

Sephiroth lifted his face to the sky, and felt the falling Mako droplets on his skin, a caress for him only....

* * *

He had to get out of here!

His captors had done their job well. Endless light and isolation and sameness and doubt. He'd completely lost track of time and had ceased to count the episodes of the Communications Room Show. Shifts! They were shifts! The people were enemies, not characters!

But it would be alright. He was regaining strength. The clawing, ripping, _choking_ sensation from the gas had greatly diminished. Now he could take deep breaths of it without fear, and greedily did. He felt Mother echo his relief. She was so glad he was alright. So glad.

He wouldn't wait.

Elated at the prospect, he succeeded at calling Masamune to hand on the fourth try. A blessed comfort! It seemed that he hadn't held something so real in a long, long time.

What obstacles would there be, outside of his cell? Probably a manageable contingent of armed guards and abundant physical barriers between him and an exit. Judging by what he'd overheard, there might not be more than that if they really had kept the identity of their prisoner secret.

The wall was thinner in... this direction. Masamune's length was impractical, there was not much room to swing it, in fact, its tip was currently embedded in the floor, but... if prisoners in movies could dig themselves out with spoons... it should certainly be doable with a sword that could, as far as he knew, cut through anything if he put his mind to it.

* * *

Hours (maybe, what was time to him?) of painstakingly chipping away at unyielding rock had him trembling despite his willpower. He was so close....

He broke through at last!

This was a junction of hallways with graciously high ceilings. He could finally stand, if only shakily. One experimental swing... yes, it was possible!

They came from all three sides at once. Onrushing, stomping boots, their owners mere vehicles for the guns they carried.

How could he have forgotten? They'd been watching him (it must've been such a thrill for them!) and were therefore well prepared. The number of opponents he now faced was a cruel reminder.

He was at a disadvantage here. But still more than a match for any non-SOLDIER. Dare he smile?

They fired recklessly, prioritizing his death over the safety of their own comrades. Should he feel shock, or pride at their savage discipline? No, he would feel nothing.

Sephiroth enjoyed killing them more than he'd ever enjoyed killing anything in his life. In his eager tiredness he was sloppy, was too slow to escape the blood gushing from their wounds. It was warm, so wonderfully _different_ from the warmth of that damn light! Soon he was covered in it. The fight was... inelegant, by his standards.

Reinforcements came to replace those he'd slain, and so the deafening, helmeted wall of panicked flesh and human fear persisted in blocking his path, bristling with blazing guns that never stopped shooting.

He took more lives. They took more shots.

There were too many. He had no armor to deflect, and not enough speed to dodge, the continuing hail of bullets. An increasingly appreciable share of the blood was his.

He knew before they did that he had failed. Already weakened from starvation, there wasn't enough Mako left in his veins to sustain his accelerated healing. But that was no reason to stop killing the guards. He'd make them use every resource they had to bring him down! He'd give them nothing but the meaningless endings they deserved!

The survivors were awestruck by his fury. How satisfying. Terror ruled them; he'd earned some personal space. He swung Masamune in wider arcs of thanks.

They were generous, offering themselves bravely to his sword, until he fell, completely at their mercy, and he couldn't think of any reason they'd let him live.

On the floor, his cheek pressed against warm sticky red, he wondered why she was silent. He thought she'd be screaming in his head.

So much red.

Before she left, the loneliness he felt was not entirely his own.

* * *

The war with Wutai continued, unabated.

Professor Hojo was not a coward. He'd convinced himself of that at last. He'd screamed and cursed and wept appropriately at the loss of his greatest success, and then he'd chosen to fly overseas to the front in his state-of-the-art lab on the newly-christened Gelnika.

His beautiful son was counting on him!

He set to work on the next batch of serum for the SOLDIER Firsts. Soon, he'd have plenty of new specimens. He was running out of letters. He'd add another digit to the designations.

* * *

The lights in the Shinra building reflected on a window, a wide expanse of glass.

I was rescued?  
...  
no  
I died.  
and this is...? not the effect of a phoenix down.

He was no longer weak. Restored. Pure and perfect, as he should be.

No, not quite. His hand felt like someone else's hand, with someone else's memories that told him there had been ink there, a tattooed '1'. But it was already fading, burning away from beneath, the foreign mark knowing itself unworthy to adorn him. Fresh, new skin healed instantly.

I had... lavender eyes.

That color burned away also from inside, sharp and searing, replaced by the turquoise that was his.

In one corner was the General's old gear, unmistakable... in the other, my Buster Sword, with dust on it. My name was....

Sephiroth froze.

What an incredible perversion of his wish! Let it be someone else, anyone else! Please. Someone whose name he did not know!

On the metal lab table, his back wasn't cold anymore, because it was covered by his long soft _silver_ hair. He ran his, _a_ hand through it. Too smooth, too long. I wasn't this tall.

His friend's voice, the one he'd so wanted to hear... the person who would, who _had_ saved him, who hadn't been afraid.

I was...  
First Class

Sephiroth tried to hold on to the voice, to save it in return, before... his own force of will overwhelmed its presence, shattered it, crushed it mercilessly, his desire to live again stronger than any compassion he possessed. Conquering without reserve, cleansing the vessel of his reincarnation, leaving no trace... nothing but memory of what once was. That person was gone, utterly consumed by the raging Mako flames of his essence to fuel his transformation back to himself.

It was like the body had never belonged to another, so completely was it his. As if he'd never died. His strength, his power... flowing, permeating, smothering, filling this new space.

Mother welcomed him home. She didn't understand why he was upset.

Because someone else could not! A life precious to him had been lost and he hadn't stopped it! There had been no chance for goodbye.

How did his own voice sound again? Like this.

"Hojo! Damn you! What did you do?!"

But... he remembered, now. There'd be no answer. Hojo was already dead.

A nightmare, that's all it was. Not real... not real... would not be.

Sephiroth stared at the dusty, dulled blade in the corner. Just stared at it. For a long, long time.

It should be on a cliff, under the open sky.


End file.
